Free Strawberry Yellow by Naomi Hirahara

one was listening to her. No one except perhaps Shug’s second cousin.
    As Jimi returned to the house from his truck, he passed four stone markers. Four buried baby sisters. This Mas Arai may be trouble, he murmured to his four sisters. But don’t worry, don’t worry . He wouldn’t let anyone, especially an Arai, keep him from what he needed to do.

CHAPTER SIX
    C ecilia’s offhand comment about Laila put Mas in a bad mood. For as much as he thought Laila’s involvement with Billy was wrong, Billy himself was more to blame. He was the married one; he was the one who had broken his vows. If anyone could be blamed for Billy’s marital woes, it would have to be Billy.
    All Mas knew was that he didn’t want to be played as a chump. He didn’t know exactly what Billy’s game was, but it clearly wasn’t a game with any set of rules. Back in his room, Mas didn’t bother to turn on the light. He sat in the darkness at the minuscule desk, feeling his knees almost touch the wall. Rosa’s words had soaked in, more than he’d wanted to let on at the time. Your people killed Laila , she’d said. Was there any truth to her accusations? And what about Billy? He’d taken Mas into the Stem House after having a fight with Laila, and he’d conveniently kept all these secrets from Mas and maybe from the police. This all had to stop. Now.
    Outside Mas heard the sound of high heels against the vinyl walkway. The stride was quick; this one was in a hurry. During his stay at the motel, he’d often heard the slow, unsure steps of a drunken trucker or the sliding of children’s tennis shoes. This sound was different. Mas lifted the edge of the plastic curtain. It was Cecilia, in a tight animal-print dress and shiny black pumps. Not studying clothes, that’sfor sure. As she darted up the staircase that went up to the fourth floor, he wondered who she’d dressed up for. There was a pool up there, wasn’t that what the desk clerk had said? Cecilia, however, did not look like she was going for a late-night swim either. Perhaps she was on her way to one of those private parties.
    Whatever it was, Mas knew he wasn’t invited, which was more than fine by him. He just feared being disturbed by the syncopated beat of electronic music or perhaps yelling and laughter by young men and women. Thankfully, however, all he heard was the hum of the wall heater, which lulled him blissfully to sleep.
    The next morning, Mas called Minnie and found out that Billy had gone to work—his first day back since Laila was found dead. Whether he liked it or not, Mas’s next destination had to be Everbears. He couldn’t just sit there as suspicions dangled like overripe fruit. They had to be picked before they dropped and destroyed anything that was potentially good.
    As Mas drove south on Highway 1 to Everbears, he felt like he wasn’t in Watsonville anymore. It turned out to be more than a feeling, for he soon passed a sign that said, “Welcome to Moss Landing.” With its oceanfront location and humble pier, Moss Landing was a sleepy former port town. Mas was surprised that a strawberry distributor would be located in such a place, but maybe Everbears wasn’t your typical farm co-op.
    Instead of a nondescript prefabricated building, Everbears occupied a converted warehouse clad in aluminum siding. A tangled metal sculpture, apparently in the form of astrawberry, was a clue that it was not co-op business as usual in this place. Across the street was a fenced empty lot with a sign declaring the property was the future location of Forever Resort. A resort? In Moss Landing? Resorts were for Hawaii, not for Pajaro Valley.
    The Everbears’ signature logo, a white strawberry flower that would eventually turn into a juicy piece of red fruit, was everywhere on this one block, even on the sign for Forever Resort.
    Inside, a large white paper globe hung from the lobby ceiling to light the room. It looked like a Japanese lantern from a summer festival, quite a